Immerse: Prophets - Flipbook - Page 422
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IMMERSE
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PROPHETS
7:1–8:4
On December 7 of the fourth year of King Darius’s reign, another message
came to Zechariah from the Lord. The people of Bethel had sent Sha
rezer and Regemmelech, along with their attendants, to seek the Lord’s
favor. They were to ask this question of the prophets and the priests at the
Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “Should we continue to mourn
and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as
we have done for so many years?”
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies sent me this message in reply: “Say to all
your people and your priests, ‘During these seventy years of exile, when
you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really
for me that you were fasting? And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t
you eating and drinking just to please yourselves? Isn’t this the same mes
sage the Lord proclaimed through the prophets in years past when Jeru
salem and the towns of Judah were bustling with people, and the Negev
and the foothills of Judah were well populated?’”
Then this message came to Zechariah from the Lord: “This is what the
Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness
to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor.
And do not scheme against each other.
“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly
turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. They
made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions
or the messages that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies had sent them by his
Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the Lord of Heaven’s Ar
mies was so angry with them.
“Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen
when they called to me, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. As with a
whirlwind, I scattered them among the distant nations, where they lived
as strangers. Their land became so desolate that no one even traveled
through it. They turned their pleasant land into a desert.”
Then another message came to me from the Lord of Heaven’s Armies:
“This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: My love for Mount Zion
is passionate and strong; I am consumed with passion for Jerusalem!
“And now the Lord says: I am returning to Mount Zion, and I will live
in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the Faithful City; the moun
tain of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will be called the Holy Mountain.
“This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Once again old men
and women will walk Jerusalem’s streets with their canes and will sit
